Anna Ford, the former BBC news presenter, has stepped down from the board of Sainsbury's after five years. Ahead of its annual meeting yesterday, Sainsbury's also said that Bob Stack, another non-executive, is leaving. His role as chairman of the remuneration committee will be taken by Mary Harris.

At the AGM, just 4.6 per cent of shareholders, including abstentions, voted against the grocer's remuneration report, while just 0.5 per cent refused to back the re-election of Justin King, its chief executive. The company also said it was looking at whether its borrowing costs have been affected by the manipulation of Libor, but it thought it unlikley as "most of our funding is on another basis".